U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,195, belonging to the same patentee, describes a perfuming composition having deodorant or antiperspirant activity and whose first advantage resides in the fact that it makes it possible to control the activation and diffusion of the perfume in time. The contents of the cited patent are hereby included by reference. This patent indicates how, thanks to the particular choice of the ingredients present in the composition, namely of the film-forming substrates and of the emulsifiers, it is possible to achieve reversible "reencapsulation" of the active deodorant ingredients, such that several successive activations can take place on the skin, without any need for further applications by the user. Thus, reencapsulation takes place in situ during the drying of the skin which follows a perspiration period.
European patent application EP 384 034-A2 describes a similar composition wherein, however, it was indicated that the use of polyvinylpyrrolidone as the film-forming component made it possible to obtain perfectly transparent alcoholic compositions, particularly useful in applications such as sticks and roll-ons, for which it was also desired to fulfill esthetical requirements. The contents of the cited application are also hereby included by reference.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,522 describes a malodor-reducing composition in which a water-immiscible adjuvant, which can be a fragrance, is encapsulated in an antiperspirant active material, said material providing slow release of the encapsulated adjuvant when in contact with moisture. This composition also provides protection of the encapsulated adjuvant during storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,747 discloses a malodor-reducing composition for body-care, which includes an unscented malodor counteractant mixture encapsulated within a semi-permeable wall, a non-encapsulated fragrant perfume mixture and a cosmetically acceptable vehicle. The encapsulated, unscented deoperfume, slowly releases its malodor counteractant agent over a period of time, while the fragrant perfume provides a sensory impression.
Finally, European patent application EP 480 520 describes underarm hygiene products containing perfumes encapsulated in a filmforming encapsulation material which is capable of re-encapsulating the perfume in an allegedly more efficient manner than the encapsulation materials disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,803,195.
These prior art perfuming compositions have two points in common: they are all intended for use in deodorant or antiperspirant products for body-care and, irrespective of their efficiency, they only allow the use of a perfume at a time, which is moreover the current practice in individual perfuming.
However, this practice meets with an inconvenient. The diffusion of the volatile emanations of a perfume, during a more or less prolonged amount of time, generally engenders a phenomenon of adaptation and olfactive saturation, causing on the observer a marked desensitization towards the currently used perfuming agents.